


What Is Love?

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Love Confessions, Sherlock Being Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:44:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9523829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: Sherlock contemplates what love really is.  Does his research prove fruitful?  Takes place after The Final Problem, season four.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just can't seem to stop on scenarios on what would have happened after the last episode. I truly do believe that Sherlock has no idea what love is and certainly doesn't know how to deal with it when he does sense that it is useful. I borrowed sayings from everywhere, from Shakespeare to popular music. Even stuck in some Mycroft being a good big brother. He's hard to write! And there's smut. Of course there is. Enjoy!

“What Is Love?”

Takes place after The Final Problem, season four.

 

What is love? A construct in which two individuals… No wait.  Love is the purpose in which a person will show attachment… Blast it. Love is intimacy, commitment, passion.  Love is attachment, ties, bonds, affinities.  Love is lust, attraction, attachment.  Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including the neurotransmitter hormones, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, the same compounds released by amphetamine, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement.

Love to him is a quite strange, if somewhat irrational behavior.  It can make one happy or sad, high or suffer.  Love hurts, love saves, love makes the world go round.  Why do those three small words make one turn to utter mush?  Or if not mush, then make one feel superior, inferior, scared, euphoric, contemplative, wanted, needed.  Love does, indeed, suck.  Love endures.  Love never fades. 

In his world, love is not patient or kind or whatever the saying goes.  It protects, it trusts, it ruins, but in the end it must never fail.  That cannot be true.  His love has failed, too many times to count.

His love of his friends, to protect and shield them from harm.  His vow broken, his best friend bereft.  His wife, his friend, trying to save him, save him from harm when she had no business applying any kind of standard of love to him, sacrificed herself in the face of danger, to save him.  He was not worth it. She attached a value to his life that he could never repay. 

His friend, his best friend sacrificed too much of his life, his happiness for him. Too much.  Now his god-daughter is motherless, could have been fatherless too.

His family, his brother, always on the lookout, always following him, always worried when he didn’t need to be.  Is that love, or familial obligation?  His mother’s sacrifice of staying with them when they were young, of putting them first, even if in the end, the two of them ended up as they did, was that love?

His other friends, his small amount of friends see him for what he is?  An utter failure.

“Sorry I blew up your flat.”

“That’s alright. Not your fault.”

“Sorry I didn’t solve your case.”

“The next one.”

“Sorry I got your wife killed.”

“Not your fault. Never your fault.”

“Sorry you’ve had to chase all over the world to save me.”

“I can never be sorry for that.”

“I am so sorry.”

“You can’t say you’re sorry if you actually believe those words.”

Dammit, John.  Why would he have to be the voice of reason?

“When’s the last time you slept? Ate?”

Sherlock huddled in 221C, walls a bit damp and musty smelling.  It didn’t make it better that the upstairs had been doused with a significant amount of water to stop the blaze that had been started by the smartbomb attached to the drone.

“Not sure.”

“Well, up and at ‘em.  I am not going to have you waste away in this dank and dirty place.   You’re coming with me.”

“I’ll not.”

“Do I have to drug you?”

He remembered the sting on his neck as he held the gun under his jaw.  The fact that he could not, would not kill two of the people he held most dear, even though one annoyed him to no end and one forgave him always.

“Go away.”

“As I said before, I will not go away.”

Even his Belstaff couldn’t keep the chill from his bones. He was so cold, so cold.

“Mycroft told me. What you did. Not sure if I could, mate.”

Eurus wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t acknowledge his existence until the end of his visit.  The violin had soothed her, but it cut deep into his soul to play for her.

“Come on.  I know you’ve no place to stay. Well, no place you want to stay.  Lestrade told me he came over to check on you.  You can’t stay here. Anywhere but here.”

All you need is love.  What’s love got to do with it.  His head was spinning, his mind a jumble.  He just wanted to sleep but couldn’t.

“Rosie’d love to see you.”

That did it.  He couldn’t use that word ever again.  He’d close his heart off even more.  Opening it up as he did, it opened it up to danger, to feeling, to seeing.  Mrs. Hudson told him that he was just too emotional.  He’d take that away, put it away, lock it up so that no one could see ever again.

John put his hand down so that he could take it, stand up and go with him.

Sherlock followed.

 

He was in a trance while they drove to John’s house.  Must have something to do with not eating or sleeping the past few days.  His eyes felt gritty, his mouth parched and dry.  Once there, John pointed him to the bedroom, handed him a towel and shoved him into the bathroom for a shower.  Sherlock went through the motions and collapsed on the bed after some toast, jam and water that John had left for him on the nightstand. 

The bed smelled like Mary.  His nose was buried in the duvet when he awoke in the dim light of the morning.  How long had he slept?  More than twenty-four hours was his bet.  Picking up his phone, he noticed that he had slept almost twenty hours since falling into John’s bed.  Rolling his muscles in his shoulders, he levered himself up out of bed in need to use the facilities.  Once that was done, he’d seek John, just to tell him thank you and to get out of his hair once and for all. 

It was a wonder that he hadn’t dreamed the night before.  Even in sleep, Sherlock usually dreamed about cases, solved things that he couldn’t while awake.  It was the sleep of the dead. His body had literally shut down.  Yanking on his trousers, he slowly made his way into the kitchen to make coffee.

The aroma of it hit him once he made it into the room. John must have put a pot on before leaving for the day.

“Laundry done. I thought you’d left.”

That voice. That soft, lovely voice. Sherlock almost burned his hand on the coffee pot.  He heard the sound of the basket falling to the floor, the shuffling of feet.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t know you were here.  John needed help with Rosie. I should go.”

Love hurts.  Love is a drug.  Love has no reason, no meaning, no explanation.

For she had eyes and chose me.

“No, stop.  Don’t go.”

“Sorry I woke you.”

Sherlock looked down and noticed that he was only half dressed, no shirt, trousers not quite pulled up.

“You didn’t wake me.”

He had to look at her.  He hadn’t even spoken to her since coming back from the island.  John and Lestrade had explained to her what had happened.  He must have had twenty messages and many more texts from her, but he hadn’t the courage to even look or listen to one of them.

“John needed me to take Rose to daycare this morning. He had an early shift.  Wanted to get back into the swing of things. My day off. Do you need me?”

The cup that Sherlock had in his hands fell to the floor, shattering into a million pieces. Warm coffee, luckily only warm since John had turned the bloody thing off, splashed over his bare feet.

“Sherlock?  I asked if you needed help.”

Me?  Help? Which one had she said?

He stood there for what seemed like hours, until Molly cleaned the mess up around him. Her hand brushed up against his, but was gone in mere seconds.  The sound of the door gently closing brought him out of his mind palace, where he’d gone to escape.  Why couldn’t he face her?

 

“I’m worried about him.”

“As am I. What do you think that I may do for you, Ms. Hooper?  I mean, Dr. Hooper.”

“Molly.”

What could Mycroft do for Molly?  Really tell her the truth about what had happened on that island.  Both John and Greg had told her about his sister, for which she was sure Mycroft would be immensely angry.  The fact that Molly could have died because this sister was angry scared Molly.  How on earth did she know? How did Eurus know?

“John made him sleep.”

“You mean drugged him.”

“It was the only way. You know how he gets.”

Molly knew how Sherlock would go days without sleeping, then would crash for a day or more to recover. His body couldn’t do that anymore, his mind couldn’t take it.

“Indeed I do, Molly.”  Progress. Mycroft had called her Molly. “I need your help.  You are the only one that can get through to him.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“My brother, he, well, as was pointed out to me, feels deeply. I hadn’t realized how much until…”

“Mycroft, I could always tell.”

“That he actually felt things. Something that I could not see. I wanted to protect him.”

Molly fidgeted in her seat, Mycroft fidgeted in his seat. Their tea sat, getting cold.

“So what can I do?”

Could Mycroft see what he felt for his own brother?  He did love his brother, although had a strange way of showing it.

“You did all the wrong things for the right reasons, you know.”

Mycroft’s soft intake of breath told her she was right.

“I, possibly. That’s neither here nor there.  His sister opened that door.”

“No, she didn’t.  He just remembered things he didn’t want to remember.  That door was always open. Just a crack.”

“You, John, Mary, even Mrs. Hudson could see through it on occasion.  I could never, never wanted to. I need to show you something.  Something important.”

Now what could that be?

As Mycroft played the scene in front of her, Molly finally understood what happened that day.  She’d only heard his voice, with a bit of worry, a bit of sadness when she had spoken to him.  She couldn’t see the expressions on his face, like he wanted to throw up, like his heart would burst out of his chest at any moment. She’d seen just a bit of that when they’d planned his fall from St. Bart’s.  Only she had seen that, no one else.

Tears streamed down her face as she watched him destroy that coffin, the one that Eurus had made for Molly and Molly alone.  The look on Sherlock’s face when he realized from whom Eurus had made it. She’d seen that look so many times in the past, knew he’d solved the puzzle before anyone else had.  He’d watched her, watched her expressions on a video screen. She’d only heard his voice. What had that done to him?

 

Burn the heart out of him. Burn the heart out of him.  That’s what Eurus had told Moriarty all those years ago.  He thought that John was the heart. He thought if he killed John and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson that would end him.  Well, it possibly would.  Moriarty missed one piece, the most important piece of the puzzle.  Eurus had not. 

Burn the heart out of him.  She had taken every single piece of his heart and had torn it to shreds.  How would he put it back together? In the end, he’d barely beaten her, just barely. He’d saved Mycroft, John, Molly. He wasn’t able to save other innocents that Eurus had killed.  He’d made a big mistake. He’d opened up his heart. He’d need to shut it down, once and for all.

“You are such the idiot, do you know that?”

“What else is new?”

“I tell you to save John. You went to hell and back to save John.  Now what? You just give up?  Because your sister actually told you that you have feelings?  Come on, Sherlock. You’re better than that.”

“Go away.”

“Make me.”

She was in his mind, he’d make her.  She didn’t leave.

Sherlock curled up on the floor of John’s bedroom, stuffed animal in his hands.

“Ok, then we’ll wait.”

“Mary, I said.”

“I know, go away. Don’t come back.  Blah, blah, blah.”

“You’re still here.”

“Your mind.”

“Why are you haunting me?”

Mary crossed her arms in front of her, feet spread apart, like she was ready to kick his arse.

“Oh, bloody hell.  You stupid git. Don’t you see?”

“Not really.  Not wanting to see anything.”

“It’s ok to be in love.”

“Love is not patient or kind. It hurts,” he yelled back at her. “It got Victor killed. It won’t stop, until I make it stop.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sherlock.”

“If I hadn’t…”

“If you hadn’t had a best friend, if you hadn’t had a demented sister, if you hadn’t whatever it was you thought you could do when you were six.”

“I have to protect them.”

“You’re just protecting yourself, from ever feeling a thing. What’s next? Forgetting about Molly, John? Rosie?” There was a hitch in her voice when she said her daughter’s name. “Don’t you see?”

“No, no.  I don’t see.”

“Love doesn’t hurt.  Loneliness, rejection, losing someone. That’s what hurts.”

“But if I don’t love?”

“Then the pain will never go away.  The pain never went away when you lost Victor, did it?  You just buried it deep.  Is that what you want?”

“I, I don’t know.”

Mary paced back and forth in front of him.

“Do you want to go back? No John, no Mrs. Hudson, no Molly.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“Good. That’s good. Don’t you see?  You love them all.  How do you feel, when you see John?”

“He, well, annoyed.  He’s made me feel things.”

“Well, at least we know you’re not a robot.”

“Mrs. Hudson?”

“She brings me tea and biscuits.”

The elephant in the room, as they say.

“Molly?”

Like a stab to the heart, no breath left in his chest to draw.

“Oh dear me, what you said was true. You do love her.  Since when?”

“Since when?” Sherlock asked, sitting up with the stuffed bunny tightly in his hands.

“How long have you loved Molly?”

“I, I’m not sure.”

“What does it feel like? In here?”

Mary pointed to herself, her heart.

“If that’s love, I don’t want it.”

“You silly, silly boy. But you do, or you wouldn’t be having this conversation with me.”

“I’m having this conversation with myself.”

“You keep believing that.”

 

“Do you love me?”

Molly startled by the voice in the dark.  She’d gotten back from talking with Mycroft plus walking the city thinking about what she’d do next.

“Sherlock, I didn’t expect…?”

Molly deposited her bag by the door and slipped off her jacket.

“Don’t turn the light on.”

“Alright.”

“I have to say whatever it is I’m going to say.”

“You’ve got this all planned out.”

“Not really.  Possibly will blow up in my face.”

She could see his outline in the dark, coat still on, like he would bolt if necessary.  Was that a stuffed bunny in his hands? As slowly as she could, she sat on the table directly in front of him.

“The question on the table?”

“Do I love you?” Molly asked.

Sherlock nodded his head.

So he wanted to know first if she loved him?  Just exactly what had happened on the phone?  Would she turn the tables on him again and make him say it?  Would she really believe it if he did? By what Mycroft had told her and showed her, those were the actions of a man who was in love. It hurt her to believe that he may actually return what she’d felt for too many years to count.

“Do I matter?  Am I worth something?”

“Oh god, yes, Molly.”

The conviction in his voice told her many more things.  He’d told her she mattered more than once, plenty of times in fact.

“I know what Eurus did to you, made you do.”

“She didn’t make me do anything. She would have known if I lied to her. She always knew, even when we were kids.”

“You remember her?”

“Yes.”

She could see his eyes shining in the dim light when he finally decided to look at her. 

“I’m not Victor.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to protect me.”

“But I do.”

“No, well, maybe just a little. And I have to protect you.”

“I, what?”

He looked a little perplexed at what she’d said. His brow furrowed a little, curl slipping down his forehead. It made him look younger and more vulnerable than he’d ever been around her.

“From yourself. Don’t close that door.”

“Metaphors.”

“No, this is a bit more literal than you think.”

“I’m not going to bury you in my mind.”

“Not like you could. I won’t have it.”

Mycroft had told her that she needed to be stern with him, make him see that he indeed, needed her. That came from Mycroft. Will wonders ever cease?

“Um, ok.”

“Ok, what?”

“This was not a part of my plan.”

“I know exactly what your plan was, Sherlock Holmes.  Close me out, shut me down, make me not care about you.”

“Well, maybe, I’m not…”

“Not what?”

Molly climbed onto his lap right then. His gasp of surprise told her that this definitely was not what he expected her to do.  Was she making a big mistake, trying to get him to open up about his feelings?

“Aware that I cannot make you shut off your feelings.”

Oh wow, she thought.  That sounded like he might actually care.  His hands were freezing, but the rest of his body was a furnace. Probably had something to do with the Belstaff that he had not taken off when he had broken into her flat.

“Sherlock, you may think you can shut your feelings down, but you can’t.  Just like I cannot.  I can see through all of it.  All your bullshit.”

“I know.”

“What?”

“I know. That you can see through my bullshit. At least now you can. And you still say that you love me. Not sure why.”

“Oh there were days when I thought I’d ring your neck.”

“Point taken.”

“Days where I thought of taking whatever weapon John had on him and using it.”

“Yes, I can see why.”

“Days where I’ve wanted to strip you bare and have my way with you.”

Sherlock stuttered, eyes fluttering when she’s said that.

“Um, really?”

“Really. I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

“Oh god, I love you,” he answered back, pulling her down for a heart stopping kiss.

“Sherlock, what on earth?”

He pulled the bunny out from between them.

“Borrowed Rosie’s bunny. It seems to make her feel better, when she’s down.”

Molly giggled as she looked down into his eyes.

“I didn’t come here, to, you know, do anything um…”

“Have sex.”

“Well, yes. I suppose, if you want to.”

Molly bit down on his neck. He groaned in response.

His coat fell as he grabbed her around the waist and picked her up off the settee. 

“Bed.”

“Yes. Not big enough for me in here.”

The wall in the hallway into her bedroom was a stopping place as he ground himself against her.

“The wall is not a bed.”

“Right.”

She wondered how she was even managing to talk, much less direct him into doing anything than what he was doing to her right at that instant.

He’d somehow lost his shoes once they made it to the bed.  Her shoes went flying along with her trousers and jumper.  Most of the buttons went flying as she attempted to tug off his shirt.

“I need you,” he groaned out as her hands raked down his torso.

The rest of the clothes went everywhere until he was on top of her, hips pinning her down to the mattress. He poised himself over her, but did not move.

“No second thoughts,” she cried out.

Instead of waiting for a response, Molly managed to flip him over while his mind worked out what he was going to do.  The look of surprise on his face told her many things.  He didn’t want to wait, but didn’t know what to do next. 

“I need you,” Molly said as she sank down on him.

“No one needs me.”

“I do.”

This was one of most vivid dreams, to have Sherlock right where she wanted him, at her mercy.  She watched as the emotions played across his face, the joy, the happiness, even a bit of sadness mixed in.

“I should have told you. I should have,” he said his hands gripped her hips.

“You did.”

“It was almost too late.”

She never thought he could feel this good, his hands know exactly what to do to please her.  The rough pads of his fingertips made her groan with pleasure as he circled her nipple. His other hand worked down in between them, making her explode in mere seconds. He didn’t even let her come down before he flipped her back over, driving into her hard and fast until she felt him tense over her, shouting her name.

He collapsed on top of her, taking her breath out in a whoosh as he did.

“Not the smoothest of seductions.”

Molly giggled, then pushed him slightly so that she could actually breathe again.

“That was ok?” he asked as he rolled away from her.

“I’m totally wrecked and you ask if it was ok?”

“Is that good?”

“I can’t move.”

Sherlock smiled at her. He actually smiled a real smile.  That did not happen often.

“The first time is often not as good as say, the second or third time. We need practice.”

“I’ve created a monster.”

He rolled back over and started to kiss down her neck.

“We need more practice.”

 

“Molly?  Molly, are you alright?”

Molly hadn’t heard the door open, nor had she heard the footsteps making their way down her hallway.  Yanking up the duvet on her bed, she kicked out just as John walked in the door.

“Oh, lord. I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were still asleep. When you didn’t answer, I thought something might have happened.”

“No, just sleeping in.”

“I’ll go. Just text me later.  We can do breakfast some other time.”

“Yeah. That’d be nice.”

He quietly shut the door.

“Oh, and Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson said that the workers will need your approval on the kitchen.”

Molly giggled as Sherlock came out from underneath the blankets.

“How did he know?”

“The fact that your clothes are everywhere?”

“Oh. Where were we?”

“Practicing,” Molly said as he dove back down under the blankets.


End file.
